


The Louvre, With Love

by mixedwithintellect



Category: Don't Let Me Go - Harry Styles (Song), Kiwi - Harry Styles (Song), Medicine - Harry Styles (Song), One Direction (Band), Sweet Creature - Harry Styles (Song)
Genre: F/M, Strangers to Lovers, it's a louvre au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:02:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mixedwithintellect/pseuds/mixedwithintellect
Summary: the one where Harry's a tour guide and wants to prove to Y/N that Paris truly is the City of LoveOR:based off the Tumblr prompt: We were pretending to be lovers but I’m not pretending anymore and I have to know if you feel the same way.





	The Louvre, With Love

_Amour fou._

You learned the term from the elderly woman in the cluttered bookshop, her spectacles seeing right through your attempt at denial. She had spoken quietly, in clear English, how you were living absurdly in a tale of  _amour fou_ for the gentleman who was perusing the shelves against the back wall. Classical music drifted between the dusty particles floating in the air; it was likely he missed the term, and hopefully the exchange altogether.

“Insane love,” was what she called it, lowering her head in disapproval, but mostly sympathy pooled in her eyes. You both watched him work his way through the novels, his fingers trailing their spines gently, pulling one out every so often to flip through the pages. You were unsure how well he read French, having only met him a week ago, but he seemed well versed enough to be your unofficial Parisian guide, so it was likely he had a general fluency about him.

“No, it’s not really like that,” you admitted, leaning against the front counter and turning back to watch Harry again. “He doesn’t like me back, we just met and have been traveling together a bit. Not like that.”

She nodded, more decidedly, and repeated, “ _Amour fou_ , not felt by both.”

* * *

_\- one week before -_

Harry Styles, your guide for the Louvre tour, showed up to a mass of American tourists, painfully obviously with their incessant chatter, cameras, and abundance of coats in the mild temperature. He, himself, was dressed in black pants, a black jacket, and a scandalously low-cut white shirt. The split buttons revealed a scatter of tattoos, his dimples only deepening when he caught the parents, and a few of their kids, staring. Which they did, and only a handful tried to hide their displeasure. But, perhaps it seemed, they felt any commentary would’ve been inappropriate considering the official badge around his neck, as well as the flag in his hand marking him as a Tour Guide and therefore on higher ground than the tourists.

He was young and British, which surprised you a bit, but he assured you while walking through the Denon entrance that he was  _fully_  qualified. You weren’t completely sure about it, seeing how his age wasn’t too beyond yours.

“Gettin’ a Masters in art history,” he spoke without making much eye contact, glancing behind him to ensure the group was well-clustered and not straying too far. You two had sort of been sectioned off from the others, only in their sphere of influence when he announced the new section ahead, or stopped to correct one of the American dads who had insisted he had magically become a master of sculpture in the past hour. Still did his job, Harry wasn’t much of a slacker when it came to informing people about what  _exactly_  they were looking at.

Harry had an abundance of fun facts about the various art pieces. He would at times slip out of the ongoing discussion with you to inform the elderly couple from Indiana, or the twins from Massachusetts, about a particular artist’s life, or how the painting influenced the world’s history. His passion for the art, the stories behind it and how it relayed emotion beyond the constraints of time, was clear.

While the families were gathering around the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Harry gently pulled on your coat sleeve to bring you to the side, speaking in hushed whispers about different art pieces such as[ Da Volterra’s ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.parisianist.com%2Fassets%2Fimg%2Farticles%2F10-curious-artworks-of-the-louvre%2Fen%2Fstrange-artworks-louvre-1.jpg&t=NTE0YTMzOWVhMjNiYTUwMGI0MjNiM2U4ZGE2YTE0MGE2YjY0MjFmMixveUplZlBnaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AIhx39Ixr5KDS59_bACmKbQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fmixed-with-intellect.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166410197838%2F12-we-were-pretending-to-be-lovers-but-im-not&m=0)[ _The Battle of David and Goliath_](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.parisianist.com%2Fassets%2Fimg%2Farticles%2F10-curious-artworks-of-the-louvre%2Fen%2Fstrange-artworks-louvre-1.jpg&t=NTE0YTMzOWVhMjNiYTUwMGI0MjNiM2U4ZGE2YTE0MGE2YjY0MjFmMixveUplZlBnaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AIhx39Ixr5KDS59_bACmKbQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fmixed-with-intellect.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166410197838%2F12-we-were-pretending-to-be-lovers-but-im-not&m=0)and the masterful techniques used by the artist to bring the painting into the 3 rd dimension. It was your own, private tour that admittedly brought chills down your spine; he stood behind you, hands on your shoulders, reaching forward to point out how Veronese included himself in his  _The Feast of Cana_ , and how scandalous Delacroix’s hairy armpits were on his  _Liberty Guiding the People_.

And then, as two youths tend to do when roaming the Louvre’s halls, parts of your lives slipped out in conversation, snippets that went a tad beyond polite conversation. In-between his lectures to the mass group, you discovered he had moved to Paris because of a woman, and within the City of Love only stumbled upon heartache. He was working at the Louvre while attending classes, an attempt to gain experience and credibility to quickly go up the ranks and become a curator. The job was on and off, though, and Harry often found his name missing from the week’s rotation in favor of the older, more serious tour guides.

You explained to him, among the Grecian Antiques, how you flew yourself to Paris for the week, yearning to find something that had been missing in your life. It felt foolish when the words came out, like an overdone rom-com with the independent female who felt unsatisfied for no real reason. Harry had no judgment in his eyes, though, only intently listening to your rushed words and hesitant pauses.

“No, makes sense. Paris is one of the most spectacular places in the world.” He was dead serious, as if the fact had been set in stone and it was a recitation of something ingrained in everyone’s sense of the world. You smiled, tilting your head to glance at the precious ceramics formed thousands of years prior. You imagined how they dealt with the persistent restlessness, if there had been a cure back in the day for feeling incomplete.

“Coming alone made sense at the time, but, I don’t know, it’s a bit lonely seeing everything and not…” you trailed off, fingers opening palm-up in an expressive attempt at catching the right words.

“Sharing it with another?” Harry finished for you, stepping closer to you as another tour group passed behind. Several pre-teen girls from the group glanced at Harry, doused so far in their own hormones you could almost see the montage of him sweeping them off their feet in an angsty, art-lover type of way reflected in their pupils. You recognized the sort of raised eyebrows they were giving you, and although you felt  _partially_ bad because they meant nothing genuinely rude from it, you glared at them back until they dispersed away from his tall, man-bunned self.

“Mhm.” you agreed, turning to your right to find a staircase, leading to the 1st level. The group had been informed to meet near the Angelina tea room after four hours of free time, a generous amount but definitely not enough to see everything the tourists had set on exploring. Harry trailed after you, the flag sticking out of his right front pocket, and his hands re-tying his hair. He seemed uninterested in directing you in a particular way, instead letting you choose the room based on what caught your attention.

Nearing a group of paintings, you stopped in front of a Madonna, the paints pressed firmly against one another and her halo a thin ray of gold around her pale face. Harry was quiet, enjoying the painting with you, his hands held behind his back. Several students were sitting on black benches around the open space, taking notes or sketching out the scenes of people around them.

It was quiet.

“Do you ever get tired, seeing the same art?” you whispered, nudging his shoulder and quickly glancing over. To your surprise, he was already looking at you, his dimples peeking through as he grinned and shook his head.

“’T’s different each time. It matters, how yeh approach the art, how yeh’re feeling and whatnot,” he looked around the room. “I used’t see a lot of suffering, before. I saw the painter’s agony, how they felt strangled to say anythin’ _without_ a paintbrush and even  _with it_ , still couldn’t communicate right with the world. Most of their stories are tragedies, told now as if it’s glorious to feel alone in the world.” His eyebrows came together, evidently displeased with the idea of romanticizing the harsh lives of artists in the 17th century.

“Now, though,” he continued, turning his gaze away from the paintings across the room, and now firmly on you. “I see more of hope, yeh know? Art’s beauty, even when the subject is somethin’ terrible, it’s an attempt to express the resilient beauty o’ humanity. Animals, still life, everything’s centered ‘round life, what’s important to us and how we preserve it in our lives.”

Was this guy for real? All you did was nod, unsure if he was fucking with you or not. His words held the weight of a man grown serious, a lifetime of loss and pain surmounting to the acceptance of recovery. But to be so open, especially with a stranger he was supposed to be leading around, was a bit disconcerting.

You fell into another lapse of silence, walking along the paintings and past the security guard at the edge of the room.

“How would you like it,” he began, his eyes trained on the flooring but swinging his hands faintly behind him with hope, “-if I showed you the rest of Paris?”

Of  _course_  he had to say it with a twinge of a French accent, and no  _way_  did it cause your heart to flutter like a madman beating his jailcell wall’s, desperate for escape.

N-o-p-e.

You were fine, cool as a cucumber at the thought of gliding down the Seine with him. At midnight, when the Eiffel Tower would be aglow and the side streets close to the water would be jumbled with couples cuddling for warmth and the rapid swells of love, against the frigid winter night.

“A-are you sure?” you stuttered, your eyes indicating clearly that,  _yes_ , you were questioning his sanity a smidge.

“’Course. Unless yeh got other plans, I’d love to take yeh ‘round. Don’t have work next week, exams are in two,” he was brushing off the offer, as if it would be no big deal to take you under his wing and show you  _his_  Paris, the streets he knew, the echoes of France he felt when walking against the wind.

“Okay.”

And, that was that. The two of you meandered along the rest of the hall, stopping at various paintings and quietly studying them. No words were exchanged, only his hand touching the inside of your wrist at moments, your hands already so close it didn’t take much movement on his part, to get your attention so he could point out a painter’s name he thought you should recognize.

(Which you mostly didn’t, but pretended to be impressed by regardless. What he didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt.)

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” a woman timidly approached you, a camera in her hand and a clear question about to surface. Harry turned, as well, clearly thinking the question was for him (with so many aimed his way during the day, you wouldn’t have been surprised), a tour-guide smile already plastered on his face.

You smiled politely, holding out a hand for the camera and replying that yes, you do, and you wouldn’t mind taking a photo of her and her daughter, who was standing a bit aways in front of Vermeer’s  _The Astronomer_.

“Didn’t want to interrupt you and your boyfriend, just don’t know how to work the bloody thing. You both look lovely together,” she flashed a smile at Harry, who’s tour-guide smile was faltering for one more genuine. He turned to the side, hiding his dimples while pretending to study a Caravaggio intensely.

You decided not to correct her, simply taking the photo (actually, several, you  _knew_ the value of having options when it came to pictures) and handing her back the camera. Her daughter smiled and thanked you, whereas the woman was glancing between you and Harry, her lips parted as if mulling over an idea in her head.

“Actually,” the woman mused, still moving her eyes back and forth between the two of you, “-I’ve got a sort of, _banquet_ , tomorrow night. I’m on a Committee of Paris Tourism, a select branch watching trends of English youth interest in France. If you two would like to come, it would be a marvelous opportunity to show how  _impactful_  and _important_  Paris is, still today, for young lovers. City of Love, we’ve still got it!” Her fist clenched and her face echoed the fierce pride of a woman perhaps a little lost in her work, addressing the interest in France as if it were the interest in the only things left  _moral_  in the world.

“Sure, we’d  _love_  to,” Harry emphatically responded, putting his hands back on your shoulders, which he had done countless of times throughout the afternoon, but none had caused your stomach to clench like  _that_  before. He flashed a large smile down at you, a small laugh escaping his lips at your perplexed stare.

“I was tellin’ Y/N earlier, how Paris is the city o’ lovers. City o’ occasion, it’s only right to share it with someone,” he said pointedly, while the lady was practically in tears with excitement. She began prattling off information to Harry, who was taking it well in stride and pocketing the papers she thrust at him eagerly.

You were considerably motionless, wondering if it was a practical joke of some kind.

After the lady had left, which had taken a while considering Harry’s massive overload on charm and her obvious crave for the lovely things of life, Harry seemed more apologetic in his glance over at you.

“Is this okay?” he hesitated to ask, taking a step back and removing his hands from your shoulders. You had remained quiet when he took over, not jumping into the conversation or flirting much with the idea of showing up to a French banquet with your Louvre tour guide.

“How did that even happen?” you questioned, blinking rapidly and gesturing towards the corner the woman and her daughter had left.

Harry relaxed some, sensing your reluctance stemmed more from the rapid nature of the situation, rather than uncertainty of wanting to go at all.

“Just does, here. All types of things happen. We won’t go as a date together, ‘f course-” your lips pursed together at  _that_  bit “-but it’ll be fun pretending for the night. Can be anyone we want, yeah? Be our own art for the night, express the bits we don’t entertain so much.”

He  _did_  make a tempting argument.

Although not much could sound unappealing when Harry’s left tit was properly out and greeting the Louvre with stark prominence. You couldn’t contain your giggles, pointing it out to him and effectively ruining the climactic and exciting mood he had been trying to produce. He laughed alongside you, shrugging his shoulders to move his shirt back into place and cover him decently.

“Ah, we can discuss it later. Let’s find the rest of the group, yeah? Gotta show the Americans where the best gift shops are,” he teased, holding out a hand to you and smiling, the sides of his eyes crinkling.

* * *

-one week later-

Harry shelled out some money from his pockets on the bookstore’s counter, seemingly unaware of the woman’s personal opinion of your relation to him, glancing up at the bookkeeper and smiling politely.

“Bonjour, juste ce livre s'il vous plaît.” ( _Hello, just this book please._ )

After giving you an uncomfortably long, pointed look, she nodded and took the book gingerly from the counter, carrying it over to her small register. You released a sigh you didn’t realize you had been holding in, brushing some hair behind your ear.

Harry leaned an arm against the counter, the tattoos on his right arm partially visible from the black shirt he had roughly rolled the sleeves on. His hair was a mess, the wind having misshapen the majority of the curls into half-hearted forms of their prior selves. Breathing in deeply, he sighed and shook his head.

“Sorry took so long, love. Been lookin for this edition everywhere, heard it was here.”

You shrugged, mumbling something about how you hadn’t minded, and how you had a nice chat with the lady of the shop.

“Great, that’s great! Did yeh try any French?” and he was staring so  _intensely_  at you - oh God, did he ever just _relax_  and let his eyes be used in the glassed-over typical nature of most  _fucking people_.

“No, not really.” You shifted your bag further up your shoulder, tilting your head towards the door.

“Can we get more bread after this? I saw a bakery down the street…”

Harry laughed. “Love, there’s a bakery every five feet. But yeah, definitely.”

 


End file.
